Transformational Change and Development

Engage.Create.Lead.

Tuesday 31st October

4pm – 5pm Panel, Discussion and Q&A: Labour Migration in The Pacific, by Union Aid Abroad–APHEDA. Panel discussion on the implications of the recent discussion paper by Union Aid Abroad on rights based approaches to labour migration in the Pacific. Free. No pre-registration required.

5pm onwards – Networking Drinks Come along to drinks and canapes in this beautiful and historic building, and meet with Conference Delegates as well as Melbourne based sector professionals. Bar open from 4.00pm.

6.15pm – Book Launch We are pleased to be hosting Bob Mitchell who will launch his recent book “Faith-Based Development: How Christian Organisations can make a difference” – you can purchase signed copies for $40.

Learn how to boost your audience’s support by tapping into deeply held values and frames. Based on decades of peer-reviewed research, Common Cause co-founder Mark Chenery will show you how to use progressive values to motivate popular support for transformation change.

Session 2 – Main HallPanel Discussion – Advocacy in the Field: A first-hand experience of aid for Parliamentarians

Can time spent in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, IDP camps in Rakhine State or informal ‘tent cities’ on the Syrian border go some way to making the case for increased aid investment? What happens when our policy makers return from an immersive first-hand experience of aid? Are views shifted and understandings deepened? Hear from those who’ve been and seen Australian Aid at work in a panel discussion with Tim Wilson MP, Peter Khalil MP and Lisa Chesters MP.

As part of the Australian Aid & Parliament Project, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and delivered by Save the Children Australia, 27 Australian parliamentarians have been ‘out in the field’ since 2015. In this session we will examine if direct advocacy is working and to what end.

Session 3 – The ChamberPanel and group work – From Violence to personal transformation and global change – working with men and communities to prevent and understand violence against women.

This session will explore challenges and successes of working with men to end violence against women. Focussing on work in the Solomon Islands and Australia, the speakers will provide examples, case studies and evidence – across a range of contexts, for what is and isn’t working in engaging men in preventing violence against women.

Theories blended with a storytelling session on the rise of widows’ movement and social impact in Nepal that has been redefining social identity of over 500,000 women and has given a new horizon of hope to the people from grassroots to global level in creating a world where there is no discrimination on the basis of marital status.

Session 5 – Mayor’s RoomPanel and group work – Making connections and building a movement: Women, Peace, and Security in Australia and the Asia-Pacific region

This session draws on the experiences and expertise of women leaders and activists engaged in movements or supporting movements working towards women, peace and security (WPS) in Australia, the Asia-Pacific region and globally. Through individual storytelling, various approaches to movement building will be brought to life for participants inviting them to consider how the development sector and individual actors could be better supporting the WPS movement. This participatory discussion will be captured in an outcome document to inform the annual civil society dialogue on WPS which will be held in late November 2017.

Day 2: Thursday 2nd November

The breakfast will include a short time of reflection and prayer followed by a presentation by Dr Debora Murthy who will be speaking about the unique role of faith and faith-based agencies in the work of pursuing justice and development. Dr Murthy is a physician who has worked in community development in Indonesia for 20 years. She used to be the deputy-head of the Maha Bhoga Marga (MBM) Foundation, the development/advocacy arm of the Protestant Church in Bali, and is now seconded to UnitingWorld as regional co-ordinator. She is well connected and respected in both government and NGO sector in Bali/Indonesia, and has unique insights in working as a faith-based development worker in a strongly multi-faith society.

Session 1 – The ChamberThinking differently- Transforming the Way we Fund and Deliver Development Outcomes?

During this session, ACFID members will showcase innovative business models, partnerships and approaches to development. Find out more about working with corporate partners in the garment factory sector, partnering in the tech start up industry, delivering an NGO consortia program at scale and establishing a business for purpose with Australia’s leaders in financial services. Ending with a Q&A, the session will give you an opportunity to explore new ways of delivering development outcomes and find out how you can apply these models to your own organisation.

Session 2 – Mayor’s RoomPanel and group work – The Future of Us

The world is changing and with it the roles of Australia’s aid NGOs. This workshop will focus on some of the findings of the first ever ‘ACFID State of the Sector Report’, a comprehensive study of the state of the Australian aid and development NGO sector. Drawing on numerous data sources, this will be your chance to delve deeper into some of the initial findings and engage in discussions about where we want to be, based on where we are now.

Session 3 – Zelman RoomWorkshop – Identifying and Responding to ‘Intersecting Drivers of Marginalisation and Inequality’ – How can ACFID Members and their partners refine their work to meet ACFID’s revised Code of Conduct?

We have long known that working on issues in isolation reduces the potential for transformative change. ACFID’s recently revised Code of Conduct makes this clear, by putting the focus on the need for ACFID members and their partners to identify, and respond to, ‘intersecting drivers of marginalisation and exclusion’. … including [but] not restricted to race, religion, ethnicity, indigeneity, disability, age, displacement, caste, gender, gender identity, sexuality, sexual orientation, poverty, class and socio-economic status’ (ACFID Code of Conduct, 2017). This session will provide a panel discussion followed by group work to debate and identify the challenges, and opportunities, represented by the revised Code.

Session 4 – The Main HallMasterclass – Monday Morning at the Office – Practical Strategies for Building Real Partnerships

Do you struggle with adapting your professional practice to build genuine, rather than rhetorical, partnerships? Are you concerned that the contracting, design, planning, M&E and communications processes within your organisation get in the way of building genuine partnerships? This Masterclass will provide an opportunity to work with a group of accredited partnership broker facilitators, and peer groups, on designing every day management processes to support partnership building.

Hear from an engaging panel of female leaders with disability from our region share their initiatives to support more people with disabilities take up leadership opportunities. Explore with the panel and DFAT and CBM Australia representatives the intersections between development programming and barriers for people with disability to reach a diversity of leadership roles locally, nationally and internationally. Discuss new strategies to support people with disabilities to reach leadership roles through inclusive development and mainstream programming.

How often have you heard someone say ‘if only there was the political will’ or ‘we just need good leadership to get this done’? But what do these vague appeals actually mean? What happens when you open up the Pandora’s box of politics and leadership?

This session will explore the results of a synthesis of 10 years of research undertaken by the Developmental Leadership Program, which has been exploring these questions. And, in addition to hearing full, frank and fearless feedback on the findings from Sarah Boddington from DFAT and Noelene Nabulivou from DIVA, you will get to play ‘synthesis bingo’!

Session 3 – The Zelman RoomPanel and Group Work – Transformational Leadership for Localised Humanitarian Action

Localisation emerged as a process to better involve and devolve power to local stakeholders in humanitarian response. Recently, the localisation agenda has felt captured in conceptual debates about what constitutes ‘local’ and what ‘as directly as possible’ means. However, localisation can also be understood as our own commitment to lead change in our roles as managers of people and operational responses. How can we support our staff to learn and develop in complex contexts and trial new ways of working that increasingly prioritise ‘the local’, even in the heat of a humanitarian response?

This session will examine the localisation agenda not as an abstract set of systems and structures to be negotiated and overhauled in Geneva or New York, but through consideration of how we all, as humanitarian and development practitioners based in Australia can support local leadership and ownership of disaster response, now.

This interactive panel discussion co-hosted by the Brien Holden Vision Institute (BHVI), the Fred Hollows Foundation (FHF), the International Agency for the Prevention of Blindness (IAPB), the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons (RACS), and Vision 2020 Australia will contribute to the conference theme ‘Lead’, by exploring the concept of ‘collective leadership’ and the importance of collaboration to drive transformational change in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals. The session will begin with a back drop of case studies illustrating how eye health interventions have helped improve gender, disability, and educational outcomes at country level. The panel discussion and the question and answer (Q&A) session will then expand the conversation beyond eye health and engage conference participants on the need to think critically about leadership and foster an open dialogue around collective leadership where the power of many is essential to achieve transformational change for sustainable development.

Session 5 – The ChamberWorkshop – Leadership Across Sectors: Could We Ditch the NGO Perspective for a Sec?

Motivations and incentives are not homogenous for those acting within the trying-to-do-good-stuff system. We need leadership that recognises this diversity if we are going to make our value set matter. We’ve pulled together folks doing research in Pacific grassroots leadership, leading in the private sector and with fresh eyes on the need for a more diversified advocacy community. They’ll spark a discussion that will change how you understand the Australian development system and together we’ll generate some new ideas for collaboration and chipping away at these systems challenges. We’ll also throw in a crash course in Kumu (a trendy, free systems mapping tool that will be sure to impress your work colleagues and help you solve wicked problems).